Is Globalization in Retreat? 2024 Condliffe Memorial Lecture by Professor Douglas A. Irwin

The world is in a new phase of globalization with the demise of policy liberalization and the rise of economic nationalism, industrial policy, and geopolitical tensions. What can we learn from past waves of globalization to help guide us in this new era? This lecture will review the four previous globalization epochs, from the mid-nineteenth century Pax Brittanica to the “hyperglobalization” of the 1990s, as a prelude to discussing the current period of “slowbalization” and potential economic fragmentation.

The lecture runs 5:15-6:15 followed by wine, canapes and networking. The lecture is open to all staff, students, alumni and friends of UC.

Bio for Professor Douglas A. Irwin 

Douglas Irwin is John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy (University of Chicago Press, 2017), which The Economist and Foreign Affairs selected as one of their Best Books of the Year. He is currently president of the Economic History Association (2023-24).

He is the author of Free Trade Under Fire (Princeton University Press, fifth edition 2020), Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s (MIT Press, 2012), Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression (Princeton University Press, 2011), The Genesis of the GATT (Cambridge University Press, 2008, co-authored with Petros Mavroidis and Alan Sykes), Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (Princeton University Press, 1996), and many articles on trade policy and economic history in books and professional journals.

He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He worked on trade policy issues while on the staff of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers and later worked in the International Finance Division at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C. Before joining Dartmouth, Irwin taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

The Condliffe Memorial Lecture

The Condliffe Memorial Lecture was instituted in 2005 to honour John Bell Condliffe, who became the first Professor of Economics at Canterbury University College in 1921.

The lecture series brings leading economists to Canterbury to provide a public lecture highlighting their recent work and its relevance to the broader business and policy community. The Condliffe Memorial Lecture is hosted by the Department of Economics and Finance and the UC Business School.

For more information about the lecture series, including the past speakers, please see Condliffe lectures | University of Canterbury